Hortense de Beauharnais

HORTENSE de BEAUHARNAIS

zaterdag 21 juli 2018

Originally the summer residence of a family of dukes (the Serbellonis), Villa Sola Cabiati is as wildly over the top as you might expect of an aristocratic playground flanking the shores of Lake Como. Huge ornate black and gold wrought-iron entrance gates open to reveal a smiling housekeeper who leads us down a gravel drive past landscaped gardens. A top-of-the-range sound system hidden within stuccoed walls plays classical music as we step, open-mouthed, into a living piece of Italian history.

The palace sleeps 12 guests, with six magnificent suites, each a treasure trove of antique furnishings and original Renaissance art. There’s even a private museum floor housing a bed slept in by Napoleon and his wife Joséphine de Beauharnais, who were friends of the Serbelloni family. Serbelloni

vrijdag 17 februari 2017

After spending the summer of 1822 in Philadelphia nursing her sick brother, Louisa Adams accepted an invitation to visit her friends Joseph and Emily Hopkinson in nearby Bordentown, New Jersey. The Hopkinsons were friends and neighbours of Joseph Bonaparte, who had fled to the United States after Napoleon’s defeat in 1815. Joseph owned a large estate called Point Breeze, on Crosswicks Creek near the Delaware River.

Louisa arrived in Bordentown on September 16, 1822. She met Joseph – who had once been King of Naples, and then King of Spain, but now called himself the Count of Survilliers – the next day.

zaterdag 17 december 2016

There was a period when Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin were all in Paris at the same time. Franklin was there as our first ambassador to the court of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. His job was get funds from France to bankroll the Revolution, and to cement a military alliance so we would win the war. Jefferson and Adams were there as commerce commissioners whose task it was to arrange an import/export trade deal with the French. Being in Catholic France was a new experience for all of them, and we know that the Church made a profound impression on one of Jefferson’s daughters, Patsy, and on one of Adams’ sons, John Quincy.

Polly and Patsy Jefferson were in their early teens when they arrived in Paris, so one of Jefferson’s first tasks was to find a suitable school for his daughters. All of his new French acquaintances recommended an elite convent school, l’Abbaye Royal de Panthemont in the Faubourg Saint-Germain. There the girls studied mathematics, history, geography, and they learned modern languages. It was a splendid education, of a kind that very few girls received back in America. Jefferson’s daughters also learned to play the harpsichord from Claude Balbastre, the organist at the Cathedral of Notre Dame.

In addition to operating a school, the nuns also offered rooms to aristocratic ladies who sought a quiet retreat from their troubles—the lack of a husband, the death of a husband, or the separation from a husband. One of the ladies living at the Panthemont at the same time as Polly and Patsy was Josephine de Beauharnais, the future lover, wife, and empress of Napoleon. Read all:ncregister/the-day-thomas-jeffersons-daughter-told-him-she-wanted-to-become-a-nun

woensdag 11 mei 2016

Left: Co-owners of the Cracked and Spineless bookshop, Richard Sprent (left) and Mike Gray, with the journal.

A handwritten journal found buried in an Australian bookshop is believed to be a prominent soldier's diary from the Napoleonic wars, writes Paul Carter.

Royal Engineer John Squire was an officer who fought for the British army in the Napoleonic era, but his interests extended far beyond the battlefield. Sophisticated and possessing a talent for writing, he served in theatres of war around the world and was prominent enough to be mentioned in diplomatic dispatches.

Lt Col Squire was a worldly man, with an interest in history and antiquities. So it's fitting that his writings are now causing great excitement on the other side of the planet, in the colony he'd have known as Van Diemen's Land. At the back of a second-hand book store, at the back of a Hobart arcade, at the back of the world in Tasmania, it appears that one of Squire's journals has been discovered.

The new owners of the Cracked and Spineless bookshop discovered the journal in a pile of old books tucked away in a cupboard. It details the English-Portuguese army's second siege of the Spanish city of Badajoz, which took place in May and June 1811, during the Napoleonic Wars.
The bookshop's co-owner, Mike Gray, said the journal was discovered a couple of weeks ago.
"The previous owner collected hundreds of thousands of books," Mr Gray said. "Some of them were in a cupboard so I sent in someone interested in old books to see if they could find anything.
"They brought out the journal and I thought 'yeah, maybe about $20, but I'll check it'. Mr Gray said the journal could have been in the shop for 20 years, but no-one knew how it arrived. A working theory is that it arrived with the colonists who established Van Diemen's Land.

'A treasure'

Squire died of fever in 1812, soon after the third and successful British siege of Badajoz, which comprised part of the Peninsular War during the Napoleonic era. Some of his letters survive at the British Library. His journals and essays ranged in content from the technical aspects of war to his involvement with antiquities.

These works and his supporting role in some of history's great moments have made Squire a moderately well-known figure among scholars who study the era. Gavin Daly, an expert in the Peninsular War at the University of Tasmania, said he believed the journal was a genuine "treasure". A handwriting match could be made with Squire's letters kept at the British Library, he said. Dr Daly said Squire was mentioned twice in dispatches by the Duke of Wellington. "Squire pops up in Egypt in 1801 when the French surrendered Alexandria. He was in South America in 1807. He was in Sweden in 1808. He was in the Netherlands at various stages and ended up in the peninsula," Dr Daly said.

Officer and gentleman

"He's not just an interesting figure as an engineer but he's also important because he had broad interests in history, geography and antiquities. "He was present when the Rosetta Stone was given to the British. He writes a paper on Roman antiquities in Egypt, and he accompanies William Richard Hamilton east and is involved in bringing some of the Elgin Marbles to Britain. "When he died in the peninsula in 1812 of fever, not long after the third and final siege of Badajoz, there was a considerable lamenting of his life. "He'd been rapidly promoted … but there was also this sense that he was the archetypal gentleman officer, who mixed in broad intellectual circles. He had a broad curiosity about the world." Dr Daly said the journal was focused on many of the technical aspects of the siege."There's not a lot in the journal about broader reflections about the nature of the war or the nature of the campaign," Dr Daly said. "What comes through though is someone who is very much focused on being as good an officer as he can - he says his foremost obligation being an officer is to do his duty. "This is a very professional soldier."

Image copyrightPaul CarterImage caption The journal is mostly focused on the technical aspects of the siege, rather than the broader context surrounding it

maandag 21 maart 2016

Napoleon, a prey to silent agitation, watched this painful scene, encouraging all present by his brave attitude. At last, after many efforts, and in the midst of so much anguish, the so-impatiently-desired child came to light. It was a son, pale, motionless, and to all appearances lifeless. In spite of all the measures taken in such cases, the child remained seven minutes without giving any signs of life. The Emperor standing in front of him was following in silence and with an air of profound attention, every movement of the accoucheur, when at last he saw the child’s breast rise, the mouth open and a breath exhaled. He feared lest it might be the first and last, but a cry escaping from the child’s lungs tells him that his son has taken possession of life. All anxiety then ceases. In the effusion of his joy Napoleon bent over the child, seized it in his arms, with a spontaneous movement, carried it to the door of the drawing-room in which all the grandees of his Empire were assembled and presenting it to them said: ‘Here is the King of Rome.’ He then returned and placed the child back in M. Dubois’s hands saying: ‘I give you back your child.’ …

donderdag 17 maart 2016

When Napoleon Bonaparte was exiled to the remote island of St. Helena after his defeat at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 he took with him twenty-four people, including his doctor, servants and four of his Generals.

One of the Generals, Count Henri-Gatien Bertrand, was Napoleon’s Grand Marshal of the Palace. Count Bertrand was accompanied by his wife Countess Françoise Elisabeth (Fanny) Bertrand and their three children. Tall, elegant and aristocratic the Countess was a feisty and beautiful young woman who had shone in French Society. She hated the island of St. Helena ‘The Devil shit this place as he flew from one continent to the other’ she said on her arrival. But loyal to her husband she stayed by his side until Napoleon’s death on 5th May 1821 and was at the ex-Emperor’s bedside when he died. Read more Countess-Napoleon-St-Helena

zaterdag 12 maart 2016

In September 1810, Napoleon advised Josephine that the new Empress was pregnant. It was suggested to Josephine that she leave Paris during Marie Louise’s confinement. Josephine was thus at Navarre on March 20, 1811, when the ringing of bells and booming of cannons announced the birth of Napoleon’s and Marie Louise’s son, the King of Rome. She wrote to Napoleon:

Amid the numerous felicitations you receive from every corner of Europe…can the feeble voice of a woman reach your ear, and will you deign to listen to her who so often consoled your sorrows and sweetened your pains, now that she speaks to you only of that happiness in which all your wishes are fulfilled! … I can conceive every emotion you must experience, as you divine all that I feel at this moment; and though separated, we are united by that sympathy which survives all events.
I should have desired to learn of the birth of the King of Rome from yourself, and not from the sound of the cannon of Evreux, or the courier of the prefect. I know, however, that in preference to all, your first attentions are due to the public authorities of the State, to the foreign ministers, to your family, and especially to the fortunate Princess who has realized your dearest hopes. She cannot be more tenderly devoted to you than I; but she has been enabled to contribute more toward your happiness by securing that of France. She has then a right to your first feelings, to all your cares; and I, who was but your companion in times of difficulty – I cannot ask more than a place in your affection far removed from that occupied by the Empress Maria Louisa. Not till you shall have ceased to watch by her bed, not till you are weary of embracing your son, will you take the pen to converse with your best friend – I will wait. (1)

maandag 22 februari 2016

Adam Albert von Neipperg was an Austrian nobleman, soldier and diplomat who seduced Napoleon’s second wife, Marie Louise, while Napoleon was in exile on Elba. Charged with this task by Marie Louise’s father, Emperor Francis I of Austria, Neipperg discouraged Marie Louise from joining her husband and eventually erased any feelings of loyalty Marie Louise had towards Napoleon. Count von Neipperg had three children with Marie Louise. He then quietly married her after Napoleon’s death. Together they proved to be relatively popular governors of the Duchy of Parma.

donderdag 18 februari 2016

The certificate from Napoleon Bonaparte's secret religious wedding to Josephine in 1804, eight years after their civil marriage, will go under the hammer in March, the French auction house Osenat said Monday.

The document is signed and sealed by Cardinal Joseph Fesch, who presided over the clandestine wedding that took place at the behest of Pope Pius VII as a condition for his presence at Napoleon's coronation.

It is part of a collection being sold by Christopher Forbes, a US billionaire and francophile, that mainly comprises artefacts from the reign of Napoleon's nephew and heir, Napoleon III.
Read all:telegraph

Full signatures from a pair of notorious lovebirds — Napoleon and Josephine — lend an otherwise routine 19th-century French marriage contract a rare prestige among other love notes on display at a high-end jewelry and antique showcase in Florida.

Just weeks after the French Senate declared him emperor, Napoleon and Josephine de Beauharnais were witnesses to the wedding of General Pierre-Augustin Hulin, who took part in the storming of the Bastille, sparking the French Revolution.

The document also is one of the first Napoleon signed with his full name, just as a monarch might today, instead of simply writing "Bonaparte" as he had before, Lowenherz said.
Read all: mysanantonio.

maandag 31 augustus 2015

Piazza Venezia marks the physical center of Rome as well as being a square buzzing with activity and history. On the north end, where Piazza Venezia meets Via del Corso, is the building where Napoleon I’s mother Letizia Ramolino Bonaparte lived: Palazzo Bonaparte. The building was built in 1660 by Giovanni Antonio De Rossi for Marquis Giuseppe Benedetto. After Napoleon was forced in to exile, Letizia was granted asylum in Rome by Pope Pius VII in 1815. It is said she loved to sit on the covered balcony, hidden from view, and watch the city unfold below her. Once she lost her sight her lady in waiting described the comings and goings to her. Letizia lived at Palazzo Bonaparte until her death in 1836. The building became the property of Italian insurance company Assitalia in 1972, but the name Bonaparte remains on the rooftop

Even today, in spite of its isolation, St. Helena welcomes a small but regular stream of French visitors who come to see the sites linked to their country's former emperor. These include Longwood House, as well as The Briars, Bonaparte's first residence in the island, and The Valley of the Tomb, where he was buried before his remains were later repatriated. The number of Napoleon devotees making the pilgrimage to St. Helena can only be expected to increase once the island becomes more easily accessible from Europe. The Napoleonic Estates also have a peculiarity that adds to St. Helena's uniqueness: they're under direct French administration and enjoy extraterritorial status, making them French enclaves within British territory. The French flag flies over them and the French Republic maintains a consul on the island that takes care of their preservation.

zondag 30 augustus 2015

The museum has taken many forms in the years since it began but most recently it has been restored to resemble how it would have looked when Hortense lived here with her son, Louis-Napoleon, who would go on to become Emperor Napoleon III in 1852.

The woman behind the current style of the Napoleon Museum is curator Christina Egli

Napoleon and Josephine decided that Hortense should marry Napoleon’s brother Louis, even though the two didn’t particularly like each other. As discussed in my post about Louis, the marriage, which took place on January 4, 1802, was miserable. Reflecting on it during his exile on St. Helena, Napoleon said:

There were faults on both sides. On the one hand, Louis was too teasing in his temper, and, on the other, Hortense was too volatile. … Hortense, the virtuous, the generous, the devoted Hortense, was not entirely faultless in her conduct towards her husband. This I must acknowledge in spite of all the affection I bore her, and the sincere attachment which I am sure she entertained for me. Though Louis’s whimsical humours were in all probability sufficiently teasing, yet he loved Hortense; and in such a case a woman should learn to subdue her own temper, and endeavour to return her husband’s attachment. Had she acted in the way most conducive to her interest, she might have avoided her late lawsuit, secured happiness to herself and followed her husband to Holland. Louis would not then have fled from Amsterdam, and I should not have been compelled to unite his kingdom to mine—a measure which contributed to ruin my credit in Europe. Many other events might also have taken a different turn. shannonselin

vrijdag 6 maart 2015

Wood violets were said to be a favorite of Napoleon's first wife, Josephine de Beauharnais, and after her death in the early 1800s, Napoleon was found to be wearing a locket with wood violets he had taken from Josephine's grave. Read more: victoriaadvocate

zondag 15 februari 2015

The engagement ring the young Napoleon “must have broken his wallet” to buy for his fiancee Josephine.

The golden ring is in an 18th century setting called “toi et moi,” “You and Me,” with opposing tear-shaped jewels — a blue sapphire and a diamond. The carat weight of the two gems is little less than a carat each.

The marriage didn’t last, but “Josephine continued to treasure the ring and gave it to her daughter Hortense, later Queen of Holland, through whom it came down to her son, Napoleon III and his wife Empress Eugene. d-unknown/napoleon-and-josephines-engagement-ring

MarriageIn 1802 at Napoleon's request, Hortense married his brother Louis Bonaparte. The couple had three sons:Napoléon Louis Charles Bonaparte (10 October 1802 - 5 May 1807) Napoleon Louis Bonaparte (11 October 1804 - 17 March 1831) Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte, later Napoleon III, Emperor of the French (20 April 1808- 9 January 1873)In 1806 Napoleon appointed his brother Louis, King of Holland. Hortense accompanied her husband to The Hague, in spite of the fact that their marriage was an unhappy one. In 1810 Louis abdicated as King of Holland and settled in Germany; Hortense, on the other hand, returned with her sons to France.

Illegitimate sonHortense was now free to respond to the romantic overtures of the man whom she had long admired, Colonel Charles Joseph, Comte de Flahaut, a sophisticated, handsome man rumoured to be the illegitimate son of Talleyrand.[1] They soon became lovers. In 1811, at an unspecified inn in Switzerland, close to Lake Geneva, Hortense secretly gave birth to a son by her lover,Charles Auguste Louis Joseph ( 21 October 1811 - 10 March 1865), later made duc de Morny by his half-brother, Napoleon III.Only her brother Eugéne, Adélaide Filleul de Sousa, de Flahaut's mother, and her closest companions were aware of her pregnancy and the subsequent birth. She had used poor health to explain her prolonged visit to Switzerland, the journey having been arranged by Adélaide. Hortense cleverly disguised her pregnancy (she was by then, in her sixth month), during the baptism of Napoleon's son, Napoleon II when she was chosen to be one of the child's godmothers, an honour she shared with Madame Mère, mother of the Emperor.

ArenenbergAt the restoration of the Bourbons in 1814, Hortense received the protection of Alexander I, Tsar of Russia; at his instigation she was created duchess of Saint-Leu by King Louis XVIII. During the Hundred Days, however, Hortense supported her stepfather and brother-in-law Napoleon. This led to her banishment from France after his final defeat. She traveled in Germany and Italy before purchasing the Château of Arenenberg in the Swiss canton of Thurgau in 1817. She lived there until her death on 5 October 1837, at age 54. She is buried next to her mother Josephine in the St Pierre-St Paul church in Rueil-Malmaison.

Arenenberg

Arenenberg

Featured above is an outstandingly fine, rare and historical 18K gold, enamel and diamond-set hunter case ‘petite souscription � tact’ watch, made for Josephine Bonaparte, Empress of France, and given to Hortense de Beauharnais Signed Breguet, No. 611, made for Madame Bonaparte and sold to her in 1800.

Hortense and son

Hortense met harp

Rueil-Malmaison

Rueil-Malmaison was originally called simply Rueil. In medieval times the name Rueil was spelled either Roialum, Riogilum, Rotoialum, Ruolium, or Ruellium. This name is made of the Celtic word ialo (meaning "clearing, glade", "place of") suffixed to a radical meaning "brook, stream" (Latin rivus, Old French rû), or maybe to a radical meaning "ford" (Celtic ritu).
In 1928, the name of the commune officially became Rueil-Malmaison in reference to its most famous tourist attraction, the Château de Malmaison, home of Napoléon's first wife Joséphine de Beauharnais.
The name Malmaison comes from Medieval Latin mala mansio, meaning "ill-fated domain", "estate of ill luck". In the Early Middle Ages Malmaison was the site of a royal residence which was destroyed by the Vikings in 846.
History
Rueil is famous for the Château de Malmaison where Napoleon and his first wife Joséphine de Beauharnais lived. Upon her death in 1814, she was buried at the nearby Saint-Pierre-Saint-Paul church, which stands at the centre of the city.
The Rueil barracks of the Swiss Guard were constructed in 1756 under Louis XV by the architect Axel Guillaumot, and have been classifed Monument historique since 1973. The Guard was formed by Louis XIII in 1616 and massacred at the Tuileries on 10 August 1792 during the French Revolution.
During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, Rueil was located on the front line.
At the end of the 19th century, renowned Impressionist painters like Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edouard Manet and Claude Monet came to paint the Seine River which crosses the town.
Rueil is (despite the title) the principal location of the novel Loin de Rueil by the French novelist Raymond Queneau, 1903 - 1976.